ORDER BY Clause – SQL

ORDER BY Clause – SQL is used to sort the data in ascending or descending order, based on one or more columns. Some database sorts query results in ascending order by default.

Syntax:

The basic syntax of ORDER BY clause is as follows:

SELECT column-list 
FROM table_name 
[WHERE condition] 
[ORDER BY column1, column2, .. columnN] [ASC | DESC];

You can use more than one column in the ORDER BY clause. Make sure whatever column you are using to sort, that column should be in column-list.

Example:

Consider the CUSTOMERS table having the following records:

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME     | AGE | ADDRESS   | SALARY   |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
|  1 | Ramesh   |  32 | Ahmedabad |  2000.00 |
|  2 | Khilan   |  25 | Delhi     |  1500.00 |
|  3 | kaushik  |  23 | Kota      |  2000.00 |
|  4 | Chaitali |  25 | Mumbai    |  6500.00 |
|  5 | Hardik   |  27 | Bhopal    |  8500.00 |
|  6 | Komal    |  22 | MP        |  4500.00 |
|  7 | Muffy    |  24 | Indore    | 10000.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

Following is an example, which would sort the result in ascending order by NAME and SALARY:

SQL> SELECT * FROM CUSTOMERS
     ORDER BY NAME, SALARY;

This would produce the following result:

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME     | AGE | ADDRESS   | SALARY   |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
|  4 | Chaitali |  25 | Mumbai    |  6500.00 |
|  5 | Hardik   |  27 | Bhopal    |  8500.00 |
|  3 | kaushik  |  23 | Kota      |  2000.00 |
|  2 | Khilan   |  25 | Delhi     |  1500.00 |
|  6 | Komal    |  22 | MP        |  4500.00 |
|  7 | Muffy    |  24 | Indore    | 10000.00 |
|  1 | Ramesh   |  32 | Ahmedabad |  2000.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+

Following is an example, which would sort the result in descending order by NAME:

SQL> SELECT * FROM CUSTOMERS
     ORDER BY NAME DESC;

This would produce the following result:

+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
| ID | NAME     | AGE | ADDRESS   | SALARY   |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+
|  1 | Ramesh   |  32 | Ahmedabad |  2000.00 |
|  7 | Muffy    |  24 | Indore    | 10000.00 |
|  6 | Komal    |  22 | MP        |  4500.00 |
|  2 | Khilan   |  25 | Delhi     |  1500.00 |
|  3 | kaushik  |  23 | Kota      |  2000.00 |
|  5 | Hardik   |  27 | Bhopal    |  8500.00 |
|  4 | Chaitali |  25 | Mumbai    |  6500.00 |
+----+----------+-----+-----------+----------+